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1: Dedication | My name is James Robert Cooney, I am 14 years old and go to Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin Highschool. I enjoy playing lacrosse and football and just relaxing. The reason why I chose to write this book is because i would like to tell others about the story of my first home. This book tells will tell about my life on Mount Royal Drive. I dedicate this book to my family for making my life possible.

4: James | James Robert Cooney, my name. James Robert was given to me with a purpose that brings back great memories and times I have had. My name James Robert came from my grandpa, and my great grandpa, and my great great great grandpa and so forth. Although “James” has been the name of all my grandparent’s grandparents in Cooney history. It was given to me with a purpose, the purpose to follow up a tradition throughout centuries. A part of that tradition is to come up with a way to share a family name without having any JR.’s in the family. So we came up with a way that the two names James Robert Cooney and James Patrick Cooney would alternate. Therefore my dad’s name is James Patrick and his dad’s was James Robert and so on. James Robert has been in the family for as long as 10 generations, and the role I play in it is to name my son James Patrick.

5: I wander sometimes why the name James, Patrick, and Robert were the names picked to mark our family’s history. What it means is Supplanter which means one who takes the place of another. It is the 6th most used name in the U.K. and U.S. and has the most saints named after it. This was a big deal for my family because all the men and women in our family were very holy. I like my name very much and I would not change it if I had the chance to. The reason being is that it was my grandpa’s name which means a lot to me because I was very close to him, I would also like to continue the tradition that comes with my name. It personally means a lot to me that I was given a chance to be a part of this tradition and I will do all I can to keep it alive. | James

6: Many people know the phrase don’t judge a book by its cover. Although not many people may be able to match that phrase to things that happen in their life. For my house on Mount Royal, the first idea that popped into anyone’s mind was that I was wealthy. I say that in a kind way, usually it was “Holy Crap dude your loaded!” Now many people may see that as a complement, but I on another hand see that as a way of thinking I get everything. Well, I definitely don’t get everything. In my opinion, I get it harder than most kids at my school. I’m not going to lie, I think I have a nice house, but that doesn’t mean I’M wealthy. My parents are wealthy, and I have also heard that I get whatever I want. Well I don’t, I mow lawns. I mow 4 lawns and have one person working for me and that’s how I earn MY money. My parents don’t hand it to me. Ever since I got this “job”, my parents have gotten harder and harder on me. They think that now I’m responsible enough to buy everything on my own, except food and clothes. I buy everything of mine. | Skipping to Conclusions

7: So when people see my laptop or phone or iPod and people skip to the conclusion that I didn’t work hard to get that, and it was just handed to me, that has a tendency to get on my nerves. My parents are also really hard on me for grades. Now I know that most parents are but everything I do they expects better. Like how if I ever get below a C- I will be pulled from sports and if I get it again I’ll be pulled from the school. They always expect A’s and anything below that is bad. This can be related to when others think I’m just going to go to college and my parents will pay for it and I won’t have to work hard to get good grades. People also have a tendency to judge others by their material goods, houses, and cars. But what some of them don’t know is that just because someone may appear “rich”, doesn’t mean they get whatever they want. That life doesn’t come that easy. It may be easier than others, but there is always a book behind each cover.

8: Trouble | Trouble is not a good word to hear a lot especially as a kid but the only way to grow up to a kind responsible adult is to get into trouble and correct your mistakes. I’ve gotten myself into trouble a good amount of times but the one that hurt my family and myself the most was when I was 10. This was the first time that I realized what kind of impact I had on the people around me. What I did was I told my parents I hated them. I didn’t realize what I said until it was too late. My parents were crying because they thought I really meant it. I didn’t get grounded or punished to realize I had made a mistake, I just had to see the look on my mom and dad’s face to realize what I had done. This started over simply me and my sisters fighting a day earlier and it progressed to becoming an argument between my parents. I was sent to my room for the rest of the day. I then was sent food from my mother who soon finally felt a little sympathy for me and was trying to do something nice. I presumed to be grouchy and threw all the food on the floor and lock her out. I soon fell asleep crying screaming that my family hated me.

9: At the time, what I didn’t realize is that my dad heard the whole thing. I fell asleep that night starting to realize the damage I was doing but didn’t care. The next day I snuck down stairs to grab a couple of granola bars. On my way up stares I met face to face with my father. He sat me down in my room and started to tell me that he heard what I said last night and that when he told my mom, she started to cry. I knew my mom’s feelings were hurt but didn’t know that my dads were mutual. I started to pretend to ignore him and give him careless answer like “sure and no”. He stormed out of the room and I knew he was staring to become hurt by my actions to. Later that night my parents sat me down and began to really talk to me about my recent behavior. They started asking me questions like, “Do you really mean what you say? Do you realize how your actions are upsetting us?” and finally “Do you hate me?” I answered yes and didn’t realize what I said first. Tears started running down my mom’s face and my dad left the room. I realized what I said and couldn’t take it back. This moment I started to realize what kind of impact I had on the people around me and started to have to be kinder to my parents. We made up and I told them I was sorry and didn’t mean it and they forgave me. Although from that point on, I always thought about what I was say before I say it.

10: My neighborhood is located in Concord, Ohio. It is in the rural areas of Cleveland and the closest school is about 10 miles from it. In my opinion, it was a very fun place to grow up. It’s right next to me and my sister’s friends’ houses and is biking distance to a golf course and other fun areas. This neighborhood is the place where I grew up and will go through my years of high school and college living at. To get to my neighborhood from Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin, you take a left out of the main entrance and follow the road until you come to a fork in the road. At the stop sign, you take a right and continue to go straight until you have the option to go right or strait. Go straight for about 100 yards and take a right on Mount Royal. Go down the hill and take left then go straight until you get to the cul-de-sac and the house on the corner is mine. I have had many memories in this home. Over the years the development changed dramatically between physical features to the friends who come and go. | My Neighborhood

11: When I first moved hear I didn’t know many people but that soon changed when a family with a little boy about my age to meet us. He was my first best friend in the neighborhood for about 4 years when he had to move. Although I met new neighbor boys who were a little younger than me, and because they were so much younger than me, I soon started to not like to be around them as much. Then when I was about 8 a new boy moved into the neighborhood. and I quickly became friends with him. We went on a lot of hikes in the woods and went on bike rides but that soon came to end because when I was about 10 he moved away. The next boy who moved in when i was 12 was a year older than me and had two brothers. There whole family played lacrosse and soon taught me how to play and it became my favorite sport to this day. Although within a year they moved away and that’s about it when it comes to friends in the neighborhood. Over the next two years I started to ride my bike everywhere. I would ride to friends’ houses that were close to mine and to quail hollow and Panini’s. I had a lot of fun riding my bike places and got a lot out of it. Such as more responsibility was given to me a long with freedom. Now of course I also had to learn how to be safe especially crossing the intersection. The neighborhood was a good place to ride bike not to mention making new friends and watching time fly by. Although if I had the chance to redo it all and start over. I would not do that in a million years. I can’t wait to move on and have a neighborhood to call my own.

12: Everyone has that special Christmas memory singing and dancing with their family but then again no one stops and thinks about what they have and to thank god for it. Well this Christmas started out a normal one but ended with an extremely important meaning to a practical joke. Christmas Eve was the same for me and my sisters still thinking that Santa would visit us over night because of our un-mature minds. It is the same every year with starting out with decorating the tree and eating dinner with my grandma and grandpa. Although the theme of this year’s Christmas was much different, the theme was to be thankful what you have and what you are given. Of course are lists for Santa were filled with the most bogus things like a trampoline and a bouncy castle, and we were going to do everything possible to get what we wanted. We were turning into spoiled kids. My sisters and I would fight over who throws the reindeer food all over the patio and who gets to sit next my grandpa when he reads the bedtime story. Yet we had no idea what my grandparents had in mind for us. We went to bed that night thinking about all the gifts we were getting the following morning, or so we thought. | A Holiday Memory

13: The next morning I woke up and about 6:30 and ran out of my room screaming for my sisters to wake up to. We then presumed to run into my parents’ bedroom banging our pots and pans. We begged them to get out of the bed but they stubbornly said go back to bed for about 30 minutes. We kept at our schemes of waking them up so they had no choice to roll out of bed. When they get up every year they call grandma and grandpa so that they can celebrate Christmas with us. We have to wait the dreaded 10 minutes until they get hear so that we can finally open our presents. When they finally get hear we shout for joy as we drag our parents down stairs to our sea of gifts. Yet there was a problem this year. When we got down stairs there was only 3 sets of socks, one for me, and my two sisters. As puzzled as we were, my parents didn’t seem surprised at all. We were shouting at them to give us our presents. My grandpa sat us all on the coach and started to tell us about how this is what some family’s get for Christmas and are very happy about it and how some don’t get anything at all. We listened in awe as my mom had tears running down her face listening to the stories my grandpa had to tell about the needy kids. We eventually found our gifts and really didn’t understand at the time what the meaning of the socks were because we were so young. Looking back now I realize that we were being spoiled and didn’t understand how much better we had it from other kids. I am happy that my parents did that because it taught me how to be happy for what I am given and not take anything for granted. Especially my family’s love and compassion.